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CHAPTER 4 – HALIDE EDIP AND YAKUP KADRI 
151 
wrote a poem attacking Yakup Kadri, his most formidable opponent who had 
referred to “hardened criminals” “who had kissed the blood-stained hands of the 
communist secret police” and to “a pair (whom the world knew were Nazım and Va 
Nu) who had stolen money from the Ministry of Education to escape to the 
Bolsheviks”. Nazım Hikmet gave as good as he got in verse “You with the head of a 
(Apis) black beast, you turned your head into the room of a whore, stealing money 
out of the pockets of dead men’s uniforms, buying yourself the mountain air of 
Switzerland”. This was an implication that Yakup Kadri had gone to the Swiss 
sanatorium with public money while in Turkey were people dying for lack of 
medical treatment
102
. 
The two writers had brilliant careers as writers and it is worth noting that by 1929 
Yakup Kadri had joined the literary establishment and felt quite estranged from the 
literary innovations of Nazım Hikmet and his followers.
In 1932 Yakup Kadri was (while still a member of the Grand National Assembly, 
now representing Manisa) among the group including some former Marxists which 
started the magazine 
Kadro
. Its line was that Kemalism was a third way between 
capitalism and socialism suitable for developing countries and requiring an 
enlightened cadre (hence the name), such as the group conceived itself, to lead the 
masses forward. In the 
Kadro 
period Yakup Kadri published 
Yaban
(1932) and 
102
Göksu, 84-91 

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CHAPTER 4 – HALIDE EDIP AND YAKUP KADRI 
152 
Ankara
(1934). These novels and their relationship to Kadro will be discussed in 
Chapter 8.
In 1934 the 
Kadro
group and its periodical were suppressed and Yakup Kadri 
himself was packed off as ambassador to Tirana. That his departure was connected 
with his independent views is made obvious even by the title of his memoir 
Zoraki 
Diplomat
. Unlike Halide Edip and her husband, however, he had not made any overt 
opposition to Mustafa Kemal. His diplomatic career continued until 1954. After 
Tirana he served successively in Prague, The Hague, Tehran and Bern. His literary 
work in this period included a translation from Proust (1942), a book about 
Atatürk
(1946) and the novels 
Panorama 
(1950) and 
Panorama II
(1954). His last novel, 
Hep O Şarkı
(Always the same Ballad), was published in 1956. He was elected again 
for the Grand National Assembly as representative of Manisa and served between 
1961 and 1965. He died in 1974 in Istanbul and in accordance with his wishes was 
buried next to his mother.
Yakup Kadri’s enormous output is mirrored by an enormous volume of critical 
writing which Ali Serdar has labelled 
Yakup Kadri Okumaları
(Yakup Kadri 
Readings/Literary Criticism)
103
. This criticism is mostly respectful and in the case of 
Hasan-
Â
li Yücel’s book length treatment almost worshipful. Even negative criticism 
is usually tempered by some praise. For example, İsmail Habib Sevük writing in 
1942 does not rate him highly as a novelist claiming that his characters do not 
develop properly and more generally that in some of the novels the characterisation 
103
Serdar 3-11 

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